1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cell image evaluation device and method and a program which evaluate a captured cell image.
2. Description of the Related Art
A pluripotent stem cell, such as an ES cell or an iPS cell, has the capability to be differentiated to cells of various tissues and has drawn attention since it can be applied to, for example, regenerative medicine, the development of drugs, and the interpretation of disease.
The stem cell is seeded in a scaffolding material (culture bed) in a culture container which is provided in a cell culture device and is multiplied in the scaffolding material using a culture medium (culture fluid) as nourishment. The multiplied stem cells are grown as a stem cell colony while being repeatedly agglutinated and combined with each other.
In the growth process of the stem cell, once the stem cell starts to be differentiated to a certain tissue, it is difficult to change and grow the stem cell to a different tissue while the stem cell is being differentiated. Therefore, it is important to multiply the stem cell to a sufficient number of stem cells while maintaining the stem cells in an undifferentiated state, and to differentiate the stem cells to a target tissue in the subsequent process, in terms of productivity.
There is a technique which cuts out only the region which is less likely to be undifferentiated in a stem cell colony and transplants the cut region to another culture container to perform subculturing. However, when the subculturing is performed, it is necessary to extract only the undifferentiated stem cell. That is, when the stem cell is cultured, it is necessary to appropriately evaluate the differentiation and undifferentiation of the stem cell.
For example, JP2012-95627A and JP2011-229410A disclose a technique which captures an image of a stem cell over time, checks a change in the observation image over time, and evaluates the undifferentiation and differentiation of the stem cell.
JP4852890B discloses a technique which evaluates the undifferentiation and differentiation of a stem cell, using tens of types of feature amounts including, for example, the number of stem cells and the number of nucleoli.
In addition to the above-mentioned stem cell undifferentiation and differentiation evaluation techniques, for example, a method has been proposed which captures an image of a cell obtained by inducing a stem cell to be differentiated to a target tissue, such as a cardiac muscle or a skin, or a cancer cell, with a microscope, checks the characteristics of the image, and evaluates the cultured state of the cell.